| Invoking Bobo
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netskyIam
| About all I hold of yours, Bobo, is a Ponce de Leon yearbook, | 1 |
1944, that summer when my dad and you became | 2 |
a pair of first class liars, enlisting under aged | 3 |
to aid the cause, so alike, so many priors, | 4 |
Bobo—son of Rath, the principal of that high school. | 5 |
You were an only child. And with your best friend made a rule, | 6 |
whatever one decided on the other pal would also do. | 7 |
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My dad survived—while you crewed | 8 |
an ambulance in Europe. My dad came home | 9 |
and sired this son. You died overseas in an overturn | 10 |
in the body of a boy to be borne home. | 11 |
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My middle name is Reid. My friends all call me Reid. | 12 |
It's for you my first name's—Robert—nearly all I know | 13 |
of you is here. I'll never use your name myself, except, | 14 |
I will, just this one time, to recall life | 15 |
to you, yourself, the man, | 16 |
who is not even yet eighteen. | 17 |
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Robert Reid Welch to Robert Rath | 18 |
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10 Mar 06 |
Rated 9.5 (8.3) by 2 users.
Active (2): 9, 10
Inactive (3): 1, 8, 8
(define the words in this poem)
(191 more poems by this author)
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Comments:
invoke - definition by dict.die.net
evoke or call forth, with or as if by magic: "raise the specter of ...
dict.die.net/invoke/ - 5k - Cached - Similar pages - Remove result
— unknown
L12 too plain and frank, surely you couldn't intertwine and re-write this so as to say "reid" only once?
L15 delete second "you"
L16 "not even yet" is clumsy, but surely you have done it for a purpose? if not, i suggest you delete "yet"
L19 does robert rath have a middle name? neater symmetry would be nice here, add his middle initial or remove yours.
— unknown
Straight forward, sad, more of an invocation and memory of the man than a poem but nice and well done. Mr. Rath would really enjoy it! My son is an ex-Marine, I thank God everyday that he came home, fuck all wars!
— wamblicante
Critic-aid #2: I do not know his middle name. That junior year yearbook only gives the
first initials of those students below the senior level: R. Rath. G. Welch.
There is no one living whom I know, to ask of his middle name.
If I find his full name later on I'll add that in.
-I've never allowed myself to be called Robert willingly. Have always been "Reid"-
Nearly all I know of him is in this poem. His dad was a difficult and cold father.
Bobo lived at times with my dad's family to escape a miserable home life. Unsatisfactory son of one home was beloved by another.
— netskyIam
can I rate preppy?
— Meep
Sure, why not? what is preppy here, though? I don't think of you as "preppy", Meep.
you're all right, whatever you meant, s' ok.
— netskyIam
This really touched me - it captures the past and gives it a new perspective - retold with a clear and unwavering voice - the timeshift technique works too,
— opal
Opal, thank you.
jw68, yes it is. Noting your "one" rating: no harm possible, poor thing.
— netskyIam
This is very nicely done evoking an era spent and the futility of events that take lives needlessly the effects of which ripple down the years and into your fine poem
— larrylark
i prefer to read the bible on the can, thanks anyway
— unknown
I'm hungry. Can i cook your arse over palmetto fire and then munchies on it?
Puccinilinibambino
— unknown
Hi Larry and thanks for neutralizing the spammer's ones. I don't know why people vandalize but hey, it happens.
The strange poem: is, in its way, I hope, a suggestion for others to think about the unknown war dead past and present: the once vivacious, who gave up their very memories of their pasts in order to give us our lives today.
Bobo: innocent and brave and probably thought he'd be safe enough.
He's not remembered by any living people I know about other than myself
and a few past-classmates who will not be long-living at their ages of eighty-plus.
Bobo will never see eighteen. What a cheat. He has no survivors.
In a way, I'm his only kin. How many only children die in wars and just
get forgotten by time- without even so much as a poem of elegy?
Or in this case, a futile attempt to reawaken and re-mind a lost youth to his
own once-brilliant, promised life?
The yearbook photos show a boy so charismatic, you just want him to be living
again.
shame on that. shame for useless denigrators, too of the brave
and of the helpless dead.
-there are so many veteran stories.
-save them in poetry, guys!
speak to a veteran. get his or her story.
make an honorarium for the heros.
thanks again Larry,
reid
— netskyIam
the very first aid noted:
"L16 "not even yet" is clumsy, but surely you have done it for a purpose? if not, i suggest you delete "yet""
Yes, the "yet" is there for a specific reason: Bobo is dead over sixty years. Despite the lapse of years he's still seventeen. "Yet" denotes this fact aids both the sonics and the poignancy of a life crystallized. Thanks. I forgot to thank you earlier; apology for this oversight. r.
— netskyIam
Retouched again.
This is an item for critical honings, not a plea for sentiment.
Thanks for any new thoughts.
reid.
— netskyIam
hi...i was looking through your poems for one i could...feel...and i found this...there's a lot that's beautiful here. the flow of time, action, memory, reflection...i love line 10....and i love 'nearly all iknow of you is here' and 'to recall you to yourself' should line 15 read 'young man?'...
lovely poem
— berrykid
pure peice of shit :)
and everyone knows it,
im right youre wrong
theres nothing you can do about it asshole
talk to you another day.
ps, what you comment on my poems, means nothing to people,
youre not even a poet, you write shit, litteral shit.
— nicolecote
nicole- I know you did not mean that.
I forgive. You forgive too?
— netskyIam
refined 02 May 06
— netskyIam
Bobo
has got to be one of the finest
toad monikers
available on e-Bay this week.
what a crazy variety of topics you cover in your writing,
Sir.
nice non-toad poem
— chuckles
retouched 19 August 2008
— netskyIam
the first two stanzas are very good, the third is like a jehova's witness. well, the first two lines of it anyway.
i think, maybe, when you start on about yourself the poem becomes overly crowded...but i can see why you do it. connections are all we have, to love, to strings forever broken. still sweetly sounding in the wind.
— DeformedLion
maybe you could do without do in 7?
— chuckle_s
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